Exercise 1a - Ball Point game (40 minutes)

Goal: The aim of this game is to invent a process by which balls are passed between players as quickly as possible in order to score points.

The Rules:

• A point is scored when every player in a team touches a ball
• If a ball falls on the ground, it counts as a defect and cannot be used in the current round 
• You cannot pass a ball directly to your immediate neighbour
• Balls must have “air-time” (a ball may only be touched by one person at a time)

The Flow:

• Preparation (planning and retrospective): all team members invent or improve the process together (2 minutes)
• Estimation: the team estimates how many points they will score in the next round (a few seconds)
• Play (sprint): the team uses its process to score points (2 minutes)

The Timekeeper will create a table for each team as below.  The Timekeeper will also announce when to move between the different phases and record each team’s estimates, actuals and defects.

In your teams, you will perform FIVE sprints, and since each sprint will take less than 5 minutes, the whole game will take under 30 minutes.

Exercise 1b - Online Ball Point game (40 minutes)

Goal: The aim of the game is to invent a process by which balls are passed between players of an online Ball Point game as quickly as possible in order to score points.

Each team decides on a case-sensitive team name and everyone on the team uses this to open the online game.  E.g. if the team name is “WM6-MangoTeam”, the game URL will be https://remoteballpointgame.openforce.com/WM6-MangoTeam

Each team member needs to:

• Set their name
• Choose which controls to use: mouse & keyboard, or keyboard only
• Pick an avatar 
• Press F at any time to see the flip chart which explains the controls for mouse or keyboard, the warm-up rules, the Ball Point rules and the scoreboard for each sprint (use the arrow buttons to move between these)
• The Timekeeper can press T to start or reset the two-minute timer

Tip: you can change your controls, name or avatar at any time by refreshing the URL.

Warm-up game

Get familiar with the controls by picking up a ball (left/right mouse click or spacebar/shift key) and passing it to someone else in the same room.  

When everyone on the team is used to the controls, you are ready to move on to the actual game.

Ball Point game

The Rules:

• A point is scored when every player in a team touches a ball
• If a ball falls on the ground, it counts as a defect and cannot be used in the current round 

The Flow: 

• Preparation (retrospective and planning): all team members invent or improve the process together (2 minutes).  
• Estimation: the team estimates how many points they will score in the next round and the Timekeeper records this (a few seconds)
• Play (sprint): the team uses its process to score points (2 minutes)

The Timekeeper can press T to start/reset the two minute timer for the preparation and play phases.  The Timekeeper should also record estimates, actuals and defects for each round by pressing F and the left/right arrows to get to the scorecard.

In your teams, you will perform FIVE sprints, and since each sprint will take less than 5 minutes, the whole game will take under 30 minutes.

Ball Point Game Debrief (20 minutes)

Goal: To reflect on your experience of working in teams with short sprints and rapid feedback and to consider how this relates to working in a real software development team.

As a whole group, reflect on the following questions:

1. What did you experience during the Ball Point Game?
2. What do you notice about your scores?  Your defects?  Your estimate accuracy?
3. How much did you “fail”?
4. How did you go about deciding improvements from round to round?
5. Would you have scored more points if you had initially planned longer?
6. Would you have scored more points if you had made one plan and then played one long round? (Why not?)
7. Would you have scored more points if one individual had decided the process? (Why not?)
8. How is this related to your daily work?